After lengthy power outage, Clearwater mayor calls for infrastructure investment

“If this had gone on for another day or two, we could have been in trouble,” said Blackwell. “Our staff managed to run around with generators to keep pumps moving, keep equipment going, but in a prolonged situation, I don’t think that would be a plausible scenario without some industrial-sized generation capacity.”

Now able to breathe a sigh of relief, Blackwell says a climate-related disaster could result in an even longer outage — as it did nearly 20 years ago.

“Looking at how the power grid is structured in the North Thompson Valley — all the way up to McBride without any looping — that’s my biggest fear. One good landslide, one good wildfire could knock something off grid,” said Blackwell. “We did experience that in the Barriere fire (in 2003) when our town was without power for around a month.”

“Back then, life was much simpler. We didn’t really have cell towers; we didn’t even have internet. We kind of lived like we were camping — or we had that capability. This is quite different.”

Climate-related disasters knocked out infrastructure in several TNRD communities over the past 12 months, with floods devastating Merritt and Spences Bridge, and Lytton destroyed by wildfire.

Blackwell says his community was perilously close to being added to that list.

“We dodged so many bullets as a community last summer. It could have been us. We could have been Spences Bridge with our power and our phone lines cut off,” he said.

Blackwell believes this week’s outage will bring discussions about investing in more resilient infrastructure to the forefront in his community. He says partnering with other agencies may be necessary to bring in adequate backup electrical power sources.

“We’ve got some backup generation power for the District of Clearwater, but not enough and not for all of the facilities we have,” said Blackwell. “We’re going to have to look at partnering with other agencies — like the RCMP potentially — to have those things in place.”

“Knowing the increased level of risk we’ve seen — with Merritt, with Spences Bridge, with Lytton — it’s time. It’s time to make those investments as part of climate adaptation, for sure.”

by James Peters

After lengthy power outage, Clearwater mayor calls for infrastructure investment

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